Skies Realigned
by sphinxofthenile
Summary: Crisis Core. The Shinra winter ball. Snow, champagne and violins. And some feelings that need resolve. Sephiroth/Angeal/Genesis, Angeal's POV.


**Disclaimer: I don't own them, they own me.**

**Warning: just some angst**

**A/N: Writen for the areyougame challange InsaneJournal, the prompt was: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Angeal/Genesis: ShinRa's winter ball - _We foot it all the night, weaving olden dances, mingling hands and mingling glances. _Co-written with Icelady aka Andrannath.**

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Snow, champagne and violins. Much to the pleasure of the employees and business associates not used to being spoiled as such, the annual winter ball of Shinra is surprisingly distinguished and stylish this year. No wonder considering that the board of directors led by some sudden blessed moment of insight entrusted Lazard with organising the event in favor of Heidegger. No wonder considering how the two of you have spent the past three months plotting; debating over carpets, caviars, invitation cards, seating orders and whatnot. I admit to never fully understanding what a difference it made to have the name cards for the tables printed in silver or gold.

I take another slip from my flute, but even the excellent deux Impérial tastes bitter all of a sudden. Was there a time when it hadn't been like this? Cottage and mansion, sports and literature, contentment and high ambitions, me and you. What was it that allowed us to become the closest friends and kept us together through thick and thin?

I shift in the dark blue and white formal attire all of us First Classes are supposed to wear on such occassions, even you with your eternal love for red. You shouldn't worry about the color, though. You look absolutely stunning in it, the deep blue highlighting your hair and eyes. The tight white pants are just an added bonus. Not that I'm staring.

I sigh and wish I could just go back to my boys in the barracks who are now weaving dreams in the chilling winter night of once being able to attend the flashiest corporal event of the year themselves. I could laugh with them while knocking back shots of hard cider and sharing stories of especially dangerous monster hunts.

I watch you drifting around in the crowd instead, dropping smiles and enchanting little comments here and there like you haven't done anything else in your entire life. Like you have never been bursting into my room wishing you could leave for the capital from the 'goddess forsaken hellhole in the middle of nowhere' where the top of social life were the New Year's parties your parent's gave in the town hall tenth the size of this floor.

I take another sip of my drink, pretending not to notice the utter look of fascination on the face of a young man whose grey eyes have never stopped following you ever since Lazard has introduced him to you. He is not the only one, you know. Just the only one sloshed enough to actually try and approach you with something else than meaningful looks and barely veiled insinuations, if the arm he tries to sneak around your waist is any implication.

I'm about to put my glass down next to the other four I've already emptied and make my way to you across the crowd - just to prevent the bloodshed, of course - when I see you chuckle and pull away, subtly shifting out of the crude almost-embrace with all the charm and expertise of a night club waitress. The guy must be some really important hotshot. Too bad he has no idea how lucky he is to have the bones in his arm still in one piece. You are not renowned for having a great liking or tolerance towards strangers intruding on your personal space, and neither do I.

Then all of a sudden, you get that look in your eyes that I always feel I can't bear to see another time. The one you always have when you set out to feed a part of you that not even I have full access to; to find a thrill in the night I don't understand and therefore can never give. Except this time, the object of your interest has a name to the face.

I follow your gaze across the room and to see him between the claws of an elderly mother and her twin daughters, the sight pulling a dry, mirthless chuckle from my throat despite myself. With all the deepest respect towards the female gender, they look like cows, big, dull hazel eyes fixed on the object of their admiration. The way they are fluttering their eyelashes and shaking their heads slightly to call attention to the chandeliers they call earrings makes my skin crawl even from this distance, and from the looks of it, the three of them is close to achieving what the whole Wutaian Imperial Army failed to do. Namely, to make the great general Sephiroth abandon his strategical position and retreat with an undignified haste.

I know your smiles and amongst them the one that is gracing your lips as you walk up to the small group and greet the khm... _ladies_ with just a slight nod of your head that yet somehow manages to leave the impression of bowing before you offer a few sugar-coated pleasantries and some sort of excuse to steal him away.

I watch as you lean closer and whisper something that makes the corner of his lips curve just the slightest, probably a remark about the situation you've just helped him out of. I watch as he replies something and you laugh that little tingling laugh of yours, body shifting slightly, subtly closer to the one in black leather, just baiting, testing the waters, and I watch as the smirk becomes more pronounced on that perfect, angelic face and endless black lashes lower by a breath over emerald green eyes. The ball room fills up with dancing couples as the slow, enchanting waltz starts, but the two of you remain where you are, caught up in your own dance, and I watch as you smile, all the charm and radiance in my world, and I can tell he is something different, because there is something different in the way you smile...

And then you leave. I follow you, polite excuses, avoiding my gaze though I'm quite certain you can feel it on your skin. I follow you out of the room because there is certainly something important you must do for just a second, a minute, and it's understandable. Who would want to stop you? And I follow him, the one who doesn't need politeness and kindness and excuses to leave, because he's a force of nature at his kindest in the least.

It doesn't take an idiot to get a few ideas and something inside me shatters, but I'll be damned before allowing vultures and predators to get a glimpse to that part of me.

We all have secrets, so it seems. I never get to see yours and this is probably the only one I know is safe from you. You're safe from it.

As the time passes, people move along, forgetting those who exited the room, because there are more important things to do – survive, share fake smiles and stab the knives into the backs of unprepared friends. It's a silly game and the uniform starts to itch, so I leave too, eventually. You see, I can succumb to politeness if I must. Undeserved one, I mean.

It feels freezing in the corridor. There are still people there, but at least the light is dimmed and the music hides from the other side of the wall. Those who are here are as tired of their social games as I feel of life this night.

I don't know where you are but I know _how_ you are and who with. It does strange things to someone claiming to be in almost full control of his emotions. If you only knew.

By the time I slip through the back door, certain no one's there because I can't face humanity anymore, my back slouches. I finally sigh. It's a small thing. Did I mention I control my emotions almost to the point of insanity? I'm allowed a sigh.

Though, once I see a person leaning to the nearest light pole, I pull myself together too quickly for a normal eye to catch. Except, only then, I realize there are no normal eyes around here. Or minds, or bodies, or lips, who are smiling at me even through the foggy dullness of winter air.

"Wha…" I try, but I lose that sight and, it does take me a while to realize it's not a punishment from above or below, but in fact a pair of palms over my eyes, blinding but soft to the point of fluff. Until I feel your scent and my knees weaken like they've never done before.

"How long are you going to pretend?" I hear you whisper, straight to my ear; your voice warm, familiar and so much more. I obviously don't know you that well.

I never knew a simple kiss to the neck could kill a man. Or that the Silver General knows how to laugh.


End file.
